LANSING -- Researchers at Michigan State University are part of an almost $3 million project to develop new assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of teaching guidelines that are to science classes what the Common Core State Standards are to mathematics and English.

The four-year grant awarded last month also went to the University of Illinois at Chicago, SRI International -- a non-profit research group originally founded by Stanford University -- and The Concord Consortium, a Massachusetts-based educational research non-profit specializing in digital learning.

The four recipients will collaborate to develop new test questions and models for measuring how well students are learning under the new standards, according to a Michigan State news release. The assessments will be tested in middle school chemistry classes in Illinois, Florida and Wisconsin.

The Next Generation Science Standards have not been uniformly welcomed, even by groups that supported the Common Core standards. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an Ohio-based education policy group that strongly supports the Common Core, issued a report last summer giving the science guidelines a "C" grade and saying the standards were inferior or equal to current standards in a majority of states.

The report said Michigan's science standards were marginally stronger than the Next Generation standards, although the overall comparison was "too close to call."

Unlike the Common Core standards, which have been adopted in 45 states, only eight states have adopted the Next Generation. Michigan, which collaborated in the development of the standards, has not yet adopted them. State Superintendent Mike Flanagan recommended adoption of the standards almost a year ago, but the State Board of Education has not voted to use the guidelines.

Lawmakers in the Michigan Legislature have attempted to block adoption of the standards, with Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills) introducing a bill last September to prohibit use of the standards. That legislation was referred to the House Education Committee, where it has not received a hearing.